Carnage on Otay Mountain

[Ride-Orange 2]

In the 5 minutes that it took to get from the front porch of the R-O Ranchito to Honey Springs Rd., I was soaked. Thankfully I emerged from the dripping mass of visible moisture about half way down Honey Springs on the way to Hwy 94. I cracked the throttle on the mighty 625 and began twisting my head from side to side, blowing the water off of my face shield. I knew this was shaping up to be a great day of riding...

We were meeting at Thousand Trails campground for an "orientation" ride up the Otay Mountauin Truck Trail *note to self; next time sandiegoland says "orientation", expect a few surprises*. Sandiegoland was leading a bunch of us into the hills to show us around a little bit. Our group had riders with varying levels of off road experience, including a brand nOOb who wound-up doing extremely well!

After we had assembled, our fearless leader assigned woodys3b to point and we headed up Otay TT

As you can see, it was a little foggy at the upper elevations, but there were also periods of clarity as well. Here we see Kurt the nOOb, followed by John the Pirate (you'll see later), and our fearless leader in the sweeper spot.

Our first stop was the top of Otay Mountain for a little sightseeing. Here's sandiegoland pointing out the fog right where Mexico is supposed to be.

For the majority of our ride, we were on decent graded roads. However, after we continued from the peak, we took a side-bar at one of the "spurs" that s.d.land wanted to show us. We found out later that our fearless leader had not intended for the group to continue down this particular trail as far as we had. We got to a fairly technical downhill section with LOTS of loose rocks from the size of baseballs to basketballs. Oh yeah, and plenty of ruts for them to hide in too.

It was pretty foggy when I came across a hobbling MikeyB who had separated from his brand new 950 Adventure, which was laying on it's side... in the rocks... I think it was about this time that Mikey was REALLY wishing he had ridden the 525 instead. We got his bike up and him on it, and he continued the remianing 50 yards to the flat area at the bottom of the hill.

That's when I turned around and found that John the Pirate (you'll see later) had met a similar fate as MikeyB. Here you can see John in the background working to get the GS650 back on the rubber.

A quick jog back up the hill and we were able to get the mighty BMW righted. Fortunately, the bike took the greater hit during this incedent, and John escaped uninjured. Once we got him to the bottom we started looking at getting the broken clutch lever zip tied into place. Here's John the Pirate "field stripping" the handguard from his disabled machine.

See what I mean? Ahrr-Be-Garr, Matey

We eventually got the clutch lever back in place well enough to get him on his happy way. MikeyB on the other hand was injured. They wound up riding back out together while the remining four of us continued on our exploratory learning experience.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventfull, but pretty nonetheless. Here's a picture of Marron Valley.

This picture proves I was there

Here's a view of... something... I think this is looking North from Kachumaa Truck Trail

This was taken from the same spot looking at where Kachumaa TT heads down toward Barratt Junction, and a shot of Barrat Junction. We went as far at the "Y" together, at which point I split off and continued down to Hwy 94 because I had some tools to return to carguy. The other fellows returned the way we had come in.

Great ride, thanks sandiegoland! I can't wait to go back when the weather is clear...

[KTMrad 516]

Good write-up and photos !!

Suggestion.....please downsize your photos so they're not so huge and can be seen on the screen without having to move the mouse around.

Thanks

[sandiegoland 0]

Nice reporting. A post from John and a few more photos at: ADVrider.com

I sent John a nice sequence of him picking up his bike. We'll see if it makes it online...